Remarkable Minds: 17 More Pioneering Women in Science and Medicine

by Pendred Noyce

  2015 Foreword Reviews INDIEFAB Book of the Year  Juvenile Nonfiction (Children's) Full of the inspirational stories girls 12+ need for exploring a future in science  
For centuries, women have risen above their traditional roles to pursue a new understanding of the natural world. This book, which grows out of an exhibit at the Grolier Club in New York, introduces the lives, sayings, and dreams of 16 women over four centuries and chronicles their contributions to mathematics, physics, chemistry, astronomy, and medicine. Some of the notable women portrayed in the book include French mathematician Marie-Sophie Germain, known for her work in Elasticity theory, differential geometry, and number theory; Scottish chemist Elizabeth Fulhame, best known for her 1794 work  An Essay on Combustion ; and Rita Levi-Montalcini, who, with colleague Stanley Cohen, received the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discovery of nerve growth factor. A companion volume to  Magnificent Minds  by the same author, this book offers inspiration to all girls and young women considering a life in the sciences. 

Genres: Nonfiction, Womens, Science

192 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 2015

About the author

Pendred (Penny) Noyce is a doctor, educator, and mother of five. She is the author of twelve books for children and young adults and one text for educators. Her children's novles are brainy and fun, mixing math or science with playful language and adventure. Three of her books have won prestigious Outstanding Science Trade Books awards from the National Science Teachers Association and the Childrens Book Council.

Reviews

[Cheryl]

From the review for the companion book that I read first: Magnificent Minds: Inspiring Women In Science:

Just started and am *very* impressed. The introduction alone is fascinating. The stories I've read so far are interesting. Each woman's life has an Historical Timeline as its first page, putting her work in the context of the times and in the context of scientists whose lives overlapped hers. I'm actually learning more about some aspects of history that I didn't know, and I've been an avid reader for half a century!

The biographies are engaging as well as enlightening. I checked out this book and its companion intending to just quickly browse them for group* but I'm actually reading every word. For example, one of the themes that fascinates me is how the women didn't always have to, or even want to, fight for recognition, or even for a chance to study. Yes, sometimes they did. And of course they had to have some interest & aptitude. But often they got help from fathers, husbands, other women....
Laura Bassi, in 1745, even got help from the Pope by persuading him to add a position for her on the Benedettini. Ada Byron was pushed into mathematics by her mother, who did not want Ada to take after her romantic poet father. (these examples from companion book)

Not only is the historical chronology helpful, but there are colored 'tab' markings indicating the field of study of each scientist; for example, if you just want to study the chemists, or those in astronomy, you can find each of them readily.

Bibliography is annotated.

I have no idea why there are two books or how the split was made.

"Barbara Bodichon, a wealthy and well-known painter" helped Hertha Ayrton in the late 1800s. I've never heard of that artist. A source I found by googling said her work has been "suppressed." :sigh:

Irene Joliet-Curie noted that: "In the United states, they prefer the Fascists and even the Nazis to the Communists. They think that the first and the second have more respect for money." Things haven't changed a bit! :sigh:

An historical bit I never knew: "The end of World War 2 left Britain nearly bankrupt as it tried to maintain a global empire and large armed forces. In 1947, Britain gave independence to India (so, I guess Gandhi's efforts had a little help, ironically, from the War), and its empire gradually began to dissolve. The working people of Britain, who had contributed so much to the war effort, felt that they deserved some reward, and in 1948 the National Health Service was created. ... sweets were rationed until 1954." (I wonder if that generation had better teeth.)

Rosalind E. Franklin found Americans friendly but rather spoiled, "kind and well-meaning but incredibly ignorant and self-satisfied." Again, we've not gotten any wiser what with social media, fake news, etc. Again, :sigh:

Btw, Harvard gets a lot of bad press in these two books. Very sexist. Johns Hopkins much more welcoming overall.

This review is copy/pasted mostly intact from Magnificent Minds: Inspiring Women In Science

[Clare O'Beara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this collection of brief biographies of women who were early mathematicians and physics experimenters, progressing through biochemistry and medicine to particle physics and electrical engineering. When I say early, our first lady is Émilie Du Châtelet who was born in France in 1706. She was a lover of Voltaire who is just one of the men featured alongside the women, as respecting scientific enquiry no matter who the enquirer and scientific accomplishment no matter who the scientist.

The majority of the backgrounds of these ladies however is turbulent, full of war, revolution, bias and legal challenge. Wealthy families were guillotined or displaced. A Nobel Prize winner in physics, Irene Curie, daughter of Marie Curie, lived in a country where she could not vote, being a woman in France. Other women had papers published under the name of their husband, or their work was accredited to other scholars after their death. Good photos and paintings set the scene for us.

Hertha Ayerton, born in England, was applauded by the Royal Society for her papers on electrical engineering, but they refused to admit her as a member, because a married woman had no standing in law. She was married to a professor, and not surprisingly became a militant suffragist.

There is some humour to be found in the situation, now, but at the time the struggle of women to survive on a poorer salary than male teaching professors and while passed over for promotion, means that even the university environment was not an accepting one. The ladies like Florence Sabin, one of the first students at John Hopkins University, benefited from other women's aid. This university was established as open to both sexes as a condition of a grant from Mary Elizabeth Garrett. Florence Sabin worked on tuberculosis and public health, winning much recognition in her later life.

Jane Cooke Wright, born in 1919, faced further challenges, being the first African-American woman in her class; her work advanced chemotherapy. Marietta Blau, from a Jewish family, fled the Nazis and was awarded the Schrödinger Prize in 1962. Gerty and Carl Cori shared a Nobel for biochemistry. While Rosalind Franklin missed out on the Nobel for discovering the structure of DNA, to which her work had contributed. She had died before the prize was awarded, and it is not awarded posthumously, but it still seems a shame to have omitted her name.

If this whets your appetite you will just have to read the book to find out more about these remarkable women, and then you may want to see what you have missed in the previous book, called Magnificent Minds, about more female pioneers of science and medicine. Many thanks to the author Pendred Noyce for collecting these inspiring stories.

[Charlotte Babb · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am inspired and humbled by the stories of these women of math and science who made significant contributions despite gender, race and religious discrimination. While many of them had family support and grew up in a privileged society, they went outside the bounds of what was expected and accepted for women to do to follow their own curiosity and intelligence.

They worked unpaid, they went to school sitting in the back of the classroom so as not to disturb the college boys. They taught themselves or hired tutors, they taught and sometimes built their own laboratories. They published when they could. The stories tell about their lives, not just their accomplishments.

What could young women today be inspired to do if they knew the stories of these women, now that almost anyone can get a decent education, can learn and contribute to the world? If you have a young woman or girl of your acquaintance, especially if she has any leaning at all towards the sciences, let a copy of this book fall into her hands.

I received a copy of this book for an honest review. I am very glad that I did.

[Shannon Shackleford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Remarkable Minds is a remarkable book!

[Aurelia McNeil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written as a sequel to Magnificent Minds, Remarkable Minds, unearths seventeen pioneering women in the fields of science, medicine, mathematics, and engineering. These preeminent women, both married and single, span seven different countries.

Exhibited among them is Maria Gaetana Agnesi of Italy who was the first woman to author and overseer the printing of an advanced mathematics textbook; Elizabeth Fulhame who pioneered the art of depositing bits of metal in silk to produce shimmering cloth; Hertha Ayrton, who established a sanctuary for women released from prison, was the first woman electrical engineer.

Even though the timeline title for Jane Cooke Wright, chemotherapy pioneer and first African American to receive a medical degree from Yale, is inconsistent with the actual birth of Jane Cooke Wright, the timelines for each woman along with a well-balanced array of pictures provides visual frames of reference.

This text not only gives factual information but shares obstacles to achievement along with the women's determination and resilience. Remarkable Minds, therefore, is motivating. For instance, Sophie Germain's parents 'worried about her health and the effects of study on the female mind' and limited her study time. As an adult, Sophie suffered pain and breast cancer, yet she made substantial contributions to the field of mathematics.

Gerty Cori, a victim of gender bias, explained how sugar is stored in the liver and released for use in the muscles. Although her salary was one fifth of her husband's, "Gerty published four papers on the effects of radiation on stained and unstained skin and on the metabolism of different body organs." Another example is that of Helen Taussig who suffered dyslexia and hearing loss. Not the less, she published some forty-one papers and became the first female president of the American Heart Association. The stories in Remarkable Minds exemplify the value of persistence.

This historical work contains morsels of information such as the process of putrefaction, fallacy of the Phlogiston theory, discovery and identification of tuberculosis bacillus, the initial use of nuclear medicine, etc. All of which provide a backdrop to contextualize and clarify the biographies of such meritorious women.

I highly recommend that Remarkable Minds be used as a textbook and reference for multicultural education as well as part of any STEM (Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) curriculum.

My favorite quote: "Whatever field you choose, just work quietly and steadily to make this world a better place, and your life will be worthwhile." - Helen Taussig as quote by Pendred E. Noyce

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[Alexandru Ciobanu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Remarkable minds provides a rigorous historical description of the lives of several remarkable women scientists. The book describes both the evolution of the characters as scholars and the ups and downs of their personal life. Thus, the reader can faithfully appreciate the difficulties that these women encountered during their struggle to become a recognized scientist in historical times often not very “friendly” to women.

The reader is transposed in a past time and is given the opportunity to understand and visualize the customs and everyday life from that distant past. There are interesting details about the way people used to learn and educate themselves, but also about their social habits. The book takes us from several centuries ago until our present days with stories about wonderful women, their lives, works and controversies surrounding them.

Remarkable minds is an easy to read book, enjoyable and interesting for any person that wants to learn more about the role of women in the history of science. It is beautifully illustrated with old, visually pleasant illustrations and photographs. The book clearly and chronologically describes the events but maybe it could benefit from a slightly more imaginative writing, and a stronger personal opinion of the author on the events, off course without losing the historical narrative.

Overall, this book makes a good read, and I believe it could be a pleasant lecture for many people, but mostly I think it can be inspiring and motivating for young women preparing to embrace the difficulties of life.

[Nadine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was amazed I had never heard about 16 of 17 of the fascinating women, some who died as recently as this decade for their contributions to medicine and the varied sciences. In reading the comprehensive biographies you learn the historical and cultural context of their achievements with the obstacles each had to overcome due to being female. A timeline is given for each woman giving in black print notable historical events and people concurrent with the red print woman's significant dates. Filled with illustrations, often a half page is devoted to a more in-depth explanation of a place, theory or process to help the reader understand the woman's life. An excellent further reading list is given at the end of the book. Reading levels would be very challenging for grade school reading, but perfect for teens and adults especially to read one biography per sitting to refect on her life and achievements rather than reading in two sittings for review purposes for LibraryThing's Early Reviewers. In telling a teacher about this book I got some women and her achievement confused due to quick reading thus I'm going to reread one per night and truly appreciate her work.

[Sylvia · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating account of seventeen little-known pioneers in science and math, who also happen to be women covering the 1600s to the end of the 20th century. Although parts were dense, I really enjoyed learning about these brilliant women who defied the odds and social expectations of their time and advanced scientific understanding, sometimes anonymously, sometimes with insufficient credit, and often without the support of established educations or scientific establishment support.

Well worth reading and it makes me want to learn more about these women and others.

[Bonnie Brandt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had not heard of a single one of these female scientists and mathematicians...and I loved that. I liked that the author pointed out that many were working with husbands or other male intellectual partners and society many times assumed that the woman was his assistant simply because she was a woman. I liked this so much that I'll be reading the book that preceded it!